This is 's character Dara, she is a future water dragon goddessI really enjoyed drawing her, especially the hair @u@ this character was right up my alley XDDDDthank you for commissioning me on such a short notice dear my cat is being operated tomorrow and i hope she will be cancer free from now on

Here is a little feature of her works because she's also an amazing artist and friend

All I can say about improving anatomy is that you just have to go and draw from life or photographs of people. It's annoying, it's tedious, but it REALLY pays off. My anatomy got exponentially better once I took a figure drawing class. Honestly I could do with another one. As nice as knowing all the basics of structured drawing and proportions and making a stick figure/mannequin are, drawing from life/photos will help you with your intuitive anatomy immensely. Also, include contortionists in the photos of people you look up. I find it a fun challenge to draw them and it'll help you understand the extremes to which humans can move themselves.

can I ask you something? how do you draw the background? do you have everything on one layer? If you have the character and the background on two different layers, how do you manage that they don't overlap?

SureMy layering for this drawing goes like this from top to bottom:accesories (jewelry, flower)hairclothing beigeclothing redSkinbackground linesbackground

They don't overlap because each layer stays on top of each other so for example if the hair pin is on top then i can draw the hair underneath it on a separate layer without messing with the accessory. That will always stay on top untouched.I lock the opacity for each layer and so i can shade them without changing their shape.This is a basic technique of how to use layers in photoshop. This technique applies to Paint Tool Sai as well as Corel Painter and judging by your question you are not familiar with it. I hope this explains better how to use layers to freely add background and characters on layers without fear of overlaping

OMG!! Thank you soo soo much for your help and your quick respond!! Yes, you really made me open my eyes! It's funny that I didn't know that after using Sai and Photoshop for so many years xDD Kinda embarrassing hahaha

well the operations was a success and she's recovering from it nicely, unfortunately her cancer is a bad one and my vet says it will return on her lungs and it will be inoperable then so... i'm just making her every life as nice as possiblethank you it's inspired from traditional korean dresses